Here's an ARPG I just stumbled across and decided to play because it had a tint of MegaTen feeling to it when I saw its screenshots. "Coded Soul: The Successor of Ildea" developed by SCEI.

The story begins when a mysterious monolith is found in the depths of the Bermuda oceans. After scientists found that it was composed of a material that can't be found on any part of the Earth, it is transported to Area-51 in America for further analysis. Soon, researchers discover that the monolith is a gate that leads into another world and can somehow affect what is directly happening on Earth. Ten years later, the research continues and a disabled human boy named "Gail" is found to be the only one who possesses the ability to communicate with it.

One day, tired of being trapped in the underground research facility and of his own handicap, he decides to enter the world the monolith lead to permanently. Soldiers attempt to stop him as he was the only means of using the monolith. When he refuses to obey Jay, Gail's bodyguard steps into protect him.

However, in the process May, a girl the boy had much affection for, gets shot trying to protect Jay. Confident that he can revive her with the power of the monolith, Gail takes her with him. Now a worried Jay enters the monolith in order to retrieve them before any disastrous changes in the world occur.

As the game begins, you don't really have many places to go around. Stuck in the research facility, you only have a few rooms to visit. There's a single store that sells a very limited selection of items (same throughout the entire game) and then there's Estelle who you can talk to to mod your weapon but, more on that later.

The "Monolith Gate" is where all the main action takes place. Once you access it, you're allowed to select the area you wish to enter. It starts off with only one area of course but as the story progresses, more are unlocked and you can return to previous areas to continue exploring as part of side quests later.

Upon entering an area, you're set a time limit to explore each level of the dungeon. The idea is you manage to make your way through the levels and find a checkpoint before the time expires or, you will have to restart from the entrance of the dungeon and run through every level again and, I'm sure you don't want to be doing that! You have about five minutes or so to explore each level which is usually enough.

Every level comes with a blank map showing you roughly where all the items and exits are but, it doesn't mark out the routes for you. You'll have to explore and find the routes yourself and the game will auto-map as you do so. However, don't think that once you have a level mapped out you'll be able to rely on it the next time you enter the monolith because the maps are randomised. Sometimes you're really just going to be relying on your luck when exploring so, the game kind of encourages you to find the exits quickly this way.

Encounters happen randomly and you don't see the enemy which is the reason why I mentioned earlier you'll want to find those checkpoints quickly. I don't really like random battles as much as I used to but, the good news is they're fairly quick. Fights happen in real time where you control your main character Jay to slash at the enemy, guard from attacks and use limit breaks known as "Kizunas (Links)".

Basically what happens after you activate the Kizuna is a line appears between you and your monster. You can then unleash a fireball that will travel across the line, hitting any enemies standing on it and your monster will return it to you. If you time it right, you can continue batting the fireball back and forth and the damage inflicted increases. You can do this until the Kizuna bar runs out but, the attack isn't all that exciting compared to the cool limit breaks that other RPGs such as Final Fantasy offers.

However, perhaps the fun aspect of the game is capturing monsters and have them fight on your team. Much like MegaTen (or Pokemon), you defeat monsters you encounter before you can capture them onto your UMD (well, the CS is developed by Sony after all!). Once you've done that, you can select up to two monsters to fight together with you, each with their own elements and skills. There's a few basic commands you can set to control their behaviour such as keep away from the enemy.

The system isn't without it's problems. The monsters maybe really aggressive when you're fighting them as enemies but, once you have them on your side their AI is pretty much dumbed down as if you captured every part of them apart from their brains. Most of the time they'll just be standing around doing nothing.

Another point worth noting is the monsters don't level up with you so you'll often find yourself in search of replacements that have similar abilities as you progress through the game. It's a pity since I'm sure you'll come across a few that you want to keep throughout the entire adventure.

Apart from consumable items such as those that restore your health at the only shop available, there's no armour or weapons to purchase. The good news is you have two weapons known as "Rulebreakers" that you can customise by paying a small fee and merging them with monsters you capture. This allows you to transform them into various kind of weapons such as swords and lances, as well as attach an elemental skill to them such as fireballs. Unfortunately, you can't duel wield the two weapons but the variety should keep you experimenting for a while.

Something similar can also be done with monsters via "Mutation" allowing you to teach them new skills, abilities or increase stats. However, as I mentioned earlier, since you'll very likely be abandoning your monster very soon, you probably won't be using this part of the game too much.

Outside the story, there are also side quests to do if you ever feel like you need some kind of goal while levelling up but, don't expect a lot of story from them. The quests usually involve hunting down and exterminating a monster or collecting rare drops. Other than that, you can also link up with other players via the PS3's "Folklore" game apparently to exchange monsters and unlock more quests.

Unfortunately, CS suffers from a lot of loading on my original PSP. Changing between small areas and entering battles take a good few seconds of time. That may not sound bad but when you consider how frequently the game has to load it becomes fairly annoying. It doesn't help when there's a few seconds of "capture time" added to the end of battles either which, is basically when you're given a chance to capture the monsters you defeated before they disappear. However, since most of the time you'll be fighting the same monsters anyway, it would be great if there was a way to skip this.

On the graphics side of CS, there's not much to see in the research facility but, models and texture look fairly nice. The only variety in environments is when you enter the world of "Ildea" via the monolith. Encounter battles take place in a plain arena. All you see is the ground surrounded in black which isn't impressive at all. To be fair though, you'll be too busy looking at the enemy that's running around or preparing attacks anyway. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes so there's plenty of variety there.

On the other hand, I feel the animations used are too repetitive. Right from the start, the main cast of characters move around very unnaturally and every time you'll see the same gesture being used over and over again. Don't expect to see expressive face animations along the levels of Crisis Core either because you won't. Instead, the game makes use of the portraits in the dialogue box and fortunately, there's quite a number of well drawn faces. Characters are your typical Anime show setup but that doesn't stop you from getting the odd laugh such as the female obsessed AI robot "Mee-kun" here.

Voice acting is great as you would mostly expect from the professional Japanese voice actors. Music has a good sci-fi touch to it while you're in the modern world and changing appropriately as you explore the elemental environments of the monolith.

On the outside, Coded Soul seems like it has a fairly interesting plot going but, I feel they leave too many things unexplained and the mystery element is very shallow. Presentation is pretty well done but unfortunately, its battle system is very limited and unsatisfying to use and the frequent loading doesn't help either. Coded Soul is very much average in terms of gameplay although if you want an RPG with a touch of Pokemon mixed into it and don't mind a very underdeveloped story then, you may enjoy this.